Tradition
by kuribon
Summary: For Sakura, it was a day when she could forget about all her problems and go back to when her life was easy and simple. But for Kiba, it was the only day he could spend with the person he loved.


It had been a tradition for as long as both could remember.

Every year, before the summer officially started and when the temperature was just starting to warm up, Sakura and Kiba would take a day off and go to the beach together.

It had all started after the Kyuubi had attacked and both of them were just babies. Since most of Konoha was destroyed back then, many villagers had to find other places to live in while everything got back to normal.

The Inuzuka compounds were one of the lasts to be rebuilt, so Kiba's family spent almost a year living in a small house next to the Haruno's residence. During this time, Mebuki Haruno and Tsume Inuzuka became friends, and kept in touch after the Inuzuka went back to their place. Four years later, both women decided to do a little trip to the beach with their kids. Since then, they had repeated this every year until the kids graduated from the academy. From that year, only Kiba and Sakura came back.

No one ever asked about this because, actually, none of them really talked about it with anyone. They would just make up an excuse so they could skip training, or would report sick so they wouldn't get sent on a mission.

But everyone knew they were lying. All of their friends and teammates knew about this tradition of them, but didn't dare to ask. Kiba and Sakura thought that maybe they just didn't care enough to do so.

However, the real reason was that everyone had their own theory of why they had kept this tradition. They weren't really that close, not as much as they were to Shino or Hinata, to Ino or Naruto.

Most of the people assumed that they did it for the nostalgia. They both longed for those times when life was easy, when their problems revolved around the classes at the academy, instead of being constantly facing dangerous enemies and having their lives on the line almost every day.

That was the day when both forgot about training, missions, and when will Sasuke-kun come back, and instead they were back to that sunny day when they were four, trying to catch a crab and making sand castles. And for Sakura, that was true.  
But Kiba's reasons were different...

For Kiba, that was the only day he could spend with the person he loved.

He had always had a crush on Sakura, ever since their first trip, when she was able to climb a big rock he had fallen from, and he thought she was the coolest girl. Well, the only cool girl actually. Back then, girls were disgusting, and playing ninja was the thing he liked the most.

Then they joined the academy and Kiba saw how Sakura had a crush on that genius Uchiha boy. He kept on ignoring his crush because duh, cool kids don't go around asking girls out. That's something just a mediocre kid like Naruto would do -and did-, as Kiba used to think.

When they became gennins, they were put in separate teams, and for Kiba's disgust, she was placed with the boy she was crushing on and the boy who was also crushing on her. It would had been perfect if instead of Hinata, Sakura was on his team, and Hinata was on Naruto's team.

Then Naruto beat him during the chuunin exams, and it hurt Kiba's pride more than if he had been beaten by Konohamaru, because they were both competing for Sakura's attention, even if Kiba was the only one aware of this.

Months later, Kiba was chosen as a member of the Sasuke retrieval team. He didn't care much about Sasuke, but he knew how much it meant for Sakura, so he did his best trying to bring him home to her. Of course, she didn't really notice his effort when they came back with him being one of the less harmed, while the rest were in a critical condition and Naruto had fought with Sasuke himself.

It was then that Kiba realized that... maybe his crush wasn't really just a crush.

Years later, he realized he was starting to love her, but decided to keep it a secret. She had already rejected Naruto, Lee, and who knows who else. She didn't need nor want another admirer when her heart only had a place for Sasuke.

So, every year, he waited for this day to come. The day where it was only them. Not Sasuke, not Naruto, not Hinata, not Shino, not even Akamaru. Just them. Playing, laughing, running, swimming like when they were four years old.

Kiba watched as Sakura took off the ribbon she was wearing in replacement of her usual hitai-ate, letting her hair fall in all it's glory. He kept watching as she turned to him and smiled, before daring him to a race and running to the other side of the beach.

Kiba smiled, too, and began running behind her.

"I just hope that I can come here with you next summer" he thought, smiling.

* * *

**Author's note: Well, this is my first time trying to contribute in some way to the fandom, so reviews and comments are well received ^^**


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